automation – Page 3 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

OM in the News: Amazon’s Cashierless Grocery Store Opens

Shoppers use an app to enter the subway-like turnstiles

“The first clue that there’s something unusual about Amazon’s store of the future hits you right at the front door,” writes The New York Times (Jan.22, 2018). A row of gates guard the entrance to Amazon Go, allowing in only people with the store’s smartphone app. Inside is an 1,800-square foot market packed with typical shelves of food. But the technology that is also inside, mostly tucked away out of sight, enables a shopping experience like no other. There are no cashiers or registers anywhere. Shoppers leave the store through those same gates, without pausing to pull out a credit card. Their Amazon account automatically gets charged for what they take out the door.

There are no shopping carts or baskets inside Amazon Go. Instead, customers put items directly into the shopping bag they’ll walk out with. Every time customers grab an item off a shelf, the product is automatically put into the shopping cart of their online account. If customers put the item back on the shelf, Amazon removes it from their virtual basket. Checking out actually resembles shoplifting, with no lines, cashiers, or clunky self-checkout kiosks to slow down the process.

The only sign of the technology that makes this possible floats above the store shelves — arrays of 100’s of small cameras throughout the store. The cameras track shoppers once they are inside, though they don’t use facial recognition. A customer entering the store scans his or her phone and then becomes represented internally as a 3-D object to the system. Cameras also are pointed at the shelves to determine interactions with goods.

There are about 3.5 million cashiers in the U.S. — and some of their jobs may be in jeopardy if the technology behind Amazon Go eventually spreads.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why do you think the opening of the 1st Amazon Go, in Seattle, was delayed a year? (The store opened Jan. 29, 2018).
Can this technology be spread to much larger supermarkets? Why?

OM in the News: Machines are Making Your Sushi, and That’s Good

In the belly of a machine about the size of an office printer, a plastic roller presses sticky rice onto a bed of seaweed. The oxygen-to-grain ratio has been precisely calibrated with the aid of X-ray tests. A razor slices the sheet into a flawless rectangle, which plunks down onto a steel tray ready to be stuffed with ruby-red tuna or smoked eel.

The $14,000 robot can help a food prep worker churn out 200 sushi rolls an hour—up from the 50 or so a chef could make by hand, according to its maker, Autec USA. Autec says orders have quadrupled over 5 years amid rising sushi consumption and a growing chef shortage. Among its customers is Whole Foods.

Service industries have lagged other sectors in spending on labor-saving equipment during this economic expansion, because as long as workers were plentiful and wages stagnant, it made more sense to hire than to invest in automation. Services make up a growing share of the U.S. economy—64% of gross output last year, up from 40% in the 1950s—but their share of capital expenditures has been relatively flat over time.

“Now, many businesses are going beyond replacing old equipment,” writes Businessweek (Dec.25, 2017). They’re also pouring money into new technology, along with buildings and production equipment. For the first time since 2000, service sector investment in intellectual-property products (think software and R&D) has surpassed 4% of GDP.

Autec expects demand for its robots to stay strong. Its most popular machines are an example of the kind of automation that can make life easier for workers—rolling out rice over sheets of nori is one of the most difficult, and tedious, parts of sushi making—rather than make them obsolete. Customization—inserting different kinds of filling—still requires humans.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. Why did service sector investment lag behind the industrial sector?

2. Why is efficiency improvement important in the service sector?

Good OM Reading: Will 375 Million Jobs Be Automated by 2030?

A new McKinsey Global Initiative report cautions that as many as 375 million workers will need to switch occupational categories by 2030 due to automation. The work most at risk of automation includes physical jobs in predictable environments, such as operating machinery or preparing fast food. Data collection and processing is also in the crosshairs, with implications for mortgage origination, paralegals, accounts and back-office processing.

To remain viable, workers must embrace retraining in different fields. “The model where people go to school for the first 20 years of life and work for the next 40 or 50 years is broken,” states the report. “We’re going to have to think about learning and training throughout the course of your career.”

McKinsey believes we may see a massive transition on a scale not seen since the early 1900s, when workers shifted from farms to factories. A needed plan would include a big investment from the private and public sectors in new training programs and workforce transition programs.

Despite the looming challenges, the report revealed how workers can move forward. While the introduction of PCs in the 1980s eliminated some jobs, it created many more roles. Workers who are willing to develop new skills should be able to find new jobs. “The dire predictions that robots are taking our jobs are overblown. Yes, work will be automated, but there will be enough jobs for everyone in most areas,” McKinsey writes. The company adds that automation will not displace jobs involving managing people, social interactions or applying expertise. Gardeners, plumbers, child and elder-care workers are among those not facing risk.

Classroom discussion questions:

What do your students think about the concept of career-long training and learning?
How does this change impact the field of OM?

OM in the News: Retailers Check Out Automation

The Cash360 machine now in the back rooms of most of Wal-Mart’s 4,700 U.S. stores.

Shopping is moving online, hourly wages are rising and retail profits are shrinking—a formula that pressures retailers, ranging from Wal-Mart to Tiffany, to find technology that can do the rote labor of retail workers or replace them altogether. “Many U.S. retail jobs are ripe for automation, with 2/3 at high risk of disappearing by 2030,” reports The Wall Street Journal (July 20, 2017).

Self-checkout lanes can replace cashiers. Autonomous vehicles could handle package delivery or warehouse inventory. Even more complex tasks like suggesting what toy or shirt a shopper might want could be handled by a computer with access to a shopper’s buying history, similar to what already happens online today. “The primary predictor for automation is how routine a task is,” says a Citi researcher. “A big issue is that retail is a sizable percentage of the workforce.”

Nearly 16 million people, or 11% of nonfarm U.S. jobs, are in retail. Now, as stores close, these jobs are disappearing. Since January, the U.S. economy has lost about 71,000 retail jobs. Automation is filtering through many parts of retail. Tiffany is using machines to polish jewelry. Home Depot has self-checkouts in most stores and is testing scanner guns for shoppers buying bulky products like lumber.

Wal-Mart has long squeezed efficiency out of its business. Although it employs 1.5 million people in the U.S., it has around 15% fewer workers per sq. ft. of store than a decade ago. Its U.S. stores now have a Cash360 machine, making thousands of positions obsolete. Employees whose task was to count cash and track the accuracy of the store’s books have been replaced by the hulking gray machine that counts 8 bills per second and 3,000 coins a minute–then digitally deposits the money at the bank.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. What other jobs are likely to be replaced by automation in the coming decade?

2. Why is this an OM issue?

OM in the News: 500,000 Tons of Steel. 14 Jobs

The “pulpit” at Donawitz, where just 3 employees control the plant.

The Austrian village of Donawitz has been an iron-smelting center since the 1400s. With the opening of Voestalpine AG’s new rolling mill this year, the industry appears secure. “What’s less certain are the jobs,” writes Businessweek (June 26, 2017). The plant needs just 14 employees to make 500,000 tons of steel wire a year—vs. as many one thousand in a mill with similar capacity built in the 1960s.

Inside the facility, red-hot metal snakes its way along a 2,300-foot production line. Yet the floors are spotless, the only noise is a gentle hum, and most of the time the place is deserted except for 3 technicians who sit high above the line, monitoring output on a bank of flatscreens. “In the long run we will lose most of the classic blue-collar workers, people doing the hot and dirty jobs in coking plants or around the blast furnaces. This will all be automated,” says Voestalpine’s CEO.

Over the past 20 years, the number of worker-hours needed to make a ton of steel industrywide has fallen from 700 to 250, as new control processes and innovations (such as casting steel closer to the shape of the finished product) have improved productivity. From 2008 through 2015, Europe’s steel workforce shrank by almost 84,000 jobs—about 20%, and experts predict employment in the sector will decline another 20% over the coming decade.

While about 300 other workers in Donawitz carry out support roles such as shipping logistics and running the internal rail system, the mill itself is operated by 14 people. The technicians sitting in what’s called the “pulpit”—a structure like a ship’s bridge high above the plant floor—mostly watch for warning signs such as spikes in temperature or pressure.

Classroom discussion questions:

What other industries are seeing a similar job compression?
What skills do the new steel plant workers need?

OM in the News: Technology and the Oil Recovery

A control room operator for Pioneer Natural Resources in Midland, helping manage all of the company’s drilling sites in 21st-century style — A control room operator helping manage all of Pioneer Natural Resources’ drilling sites

We blogged a few weeks ago about changes in the oil drilling industry and how automation is creating a new demand for high-tech workers. It is in the news again. “Despite 163,000 lost oil jobs since 2014, U.S. oil production is galloping upward, to 9 million barrels a day from 8.6 million a few months ago,” reports The New York Times (Feb, 20, 2017).

Nationwide, with only 1/3 as many rigs operating as in 2014, production is down less than 10% from record levels. Wells that 3 years ago required a breakeven oil price of $60 a barrel now need $35, well below the current price of $53.

Much of the technology has been developed by the aviation and automotive industries. Now most oil firms have organized teams of technicians that collect well and tank data to develop complex algorithms enabling them to duplicate the design for the most productive wells and to repair parts before they break down. The result is improved production and safety, but also a far smaller–more brain-oriented–work force.

Texas’ Pioneer Natural Resources has slashed the number of days to drill and complete wells so drastically that it has been able to cut costs by 25% in wells completed since 2015. The typical rig that drilled 8-12 wells a year just a few years ago now drills 16. Last year, the company added 240 Texas wells without adding new employees.

With the loss of manual jobs has come a transformation in the job force, with demand growing for more data analysts, math scientists, communications specialists and robotic design engineers. In the last 2 year, Switzerland’s ABB has opened two plants in Houston for assembling robotics into oil field operations.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the implications of increased productivity in this industry?

2. How is OM changing the drilling industry?

OM in the News: The Automation of Oil Drilling

As the global oil industry begins to climb out of a collapse that took 440,000 jobs, anywhere from a 1/3 to 1/2 may never come back. “A combination of more efficient drilling rigs and increased automation is reducing the need for field hands,” writes Businessweek (Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2017).

Automation, of course, has revolutionized many industries, from auto manufacturing to food and clothing makers. Energy companies, which rely on large, complex equipment for drilling and maintaining oil wells, are particularly well-positioned to benefit. “It used to be you had a toolbox full of wrenches and tubing benders,” says one south Texas professor. “Now your main tool is a laptop.” During the boom, companies were too busy pumping oil and gas to worry about head count. The two-and-a-half-year downturn gave executives time to rethink the mix of human labor and automated machinery in the oil fields.

Nabors Industries, the world’s largest onshore driller, says it expects to cut the number of workers at each well site eventually to 5, from 20, by deploying more automated drilling rigs. Rigs have gotten so efficient that the U.S. oil industry needs only 1/2 as many workers as it did at the height of the shale boom in 2014 to suck the same amount of oil out of the ground.

The systems, that is all the processes involved in drilling and fracking a well, will be the key. That means an engineer can design an oil well at his desk. With the press of a button, an automated system would identify the equipment needed from a supplier, create a 3D model, send the details to the rig, and tell the rig to do the job.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why the industry push for automation?
What are the plusses and minuses for the U.S?

OM in the News and Video Tip: Amazon and the Death of the Cashier?

In Seattle, writes The Financial Times (Dec. 9, 2016), Amazon has just opened a futuristic convenience store that does away with checkout lines and cashiers. Amazon has portrayed its first grocery store as the retail equivalent of a self-driving car. Bristling with sensors and equipped with sophisticated software, it tracks customers’ movements as they lift items off the shelves, so there is no need to ring up the bill when they are done.

OM in the News: Small Factories Emerge as a Weapon in U.S. Cities

James Branch works as a skilled machine operator at Marlin, which makes specialized baskets.

The New York Times (Oct. 30, 2016), tells the story of the unlikely survival of Baltimore’s Marlin Steel, a rare breed: the urban industrial manufacturer. Marlin, a 50-year old company that makes steel baskets, is a thriving factory in a place that factories have fled — first to the South, and later to Asia.

How did Marlin survive? Over the course of a decade, it invested in robots that churned out baskets 100 times as fast as human beings. Marlin trained its workers to operate the robots, which cost several $100,000 each, and hired engineers to help design ever-more-sophisticated products to win customers and stay ahead of overseas rivals. Automation did not mean the elimination of jobs– in fact, it saved the company– by producing many more baskets, with only a few more workers, each paid well over $50,000.

Factories will never employ the masses of Americans they once did. Automation and foreign competition will not abate. Over the last 20 years, industrial employment has dropped by 1/3. Only 12.3 million Americans work in the sector today, millions fewer than in leisure and hospitality. But small manufacturers like Marlin are vital if the U.S. is to build a society that offers greater opportunities for everyone.

Today, smaller plants are particularly important to job creation in factory work. As megafactories are the exception, small manufacturing is holding its own. Out of 252,000 manufacturing companies in the U.S., only 3,700 had more than 500 workers. The vast majority employ fewer than 20.

While they may not rival the scale of 1950s assembly lines, these smaller craft-type producers hold out hope for cities, particularly as some companies look to move jobs back from overseas to be closer to customers and more nimble to supply customized, small-batch orders. And, these jobs pay more. Manufacturing workers typically earn over $26 an hour.

Classroom discussion questions:
1. What was Marlin’s OM strategy?

2. Why will millions of manufacturing jobs never return?

OM in the News: Massive Robots Keep Docks Shipshape

. Cargo containers are carried around the Port of Los Angeles by automated machines guided by a magnetic grid embedded in the pavement. Autonomous “straddle carriers,” as they are known, pick up containers that have just come off the ship, and transport them to stacks to be organized. Automated machines pick up and carry cargo containers to stacks at the Port of Los Angeles, guided by a magnetic grid embedded in the pavement. A back-end technology system runs this robotic crane that sets containers in place in long stacks and retrieves them when truckers arrive to pick up the cargo. Cameras on the stacking crane assist workers in the port terminal office, guiding each container the last few feet to rest on a truck bed. Inside the port terminal office, a worker gently sets containers on truck beds using a joystick and live images of the machinery. On average, he loads more than one truck a minute in this way. Once they are off the ship, cargo containers at the TraPac terminal in Los Angeles are transported entirely by robots until they are set on trucks and carried off the terminal. Automated machines carry cargo containers around the TraPac marine terminal. Robotic cranes set containers in long stacks and retrieve them to load onto trucks. Cargo containers are carried around the TraPac marine terminal at the Port of Los Angeles by automated machines guided by a magnetic grid embedded in the pavement. PreviousNext 2 of 9 fullscreen Robotic cranes set containers in long stacks and retrieve them to load onto trucks. PATRICK T. FALLON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Autonomous “straddle carriers,” as they are known, pick up containers that have just come off the ship, and transport them to stacks to be organized — .
Cargo containers are carried around the Port of Los Angeles by automated machines guided by a magnetic grid embedded in the pavement.

At one of the busiest shipping terminals in the U.S., more than two dozen giant red robots wheeled cargo containers along the docks on a recent morning, handing the boxes off to another set of androids gliding along long rows of stacked containers before smoothly setting the boxes down in precise spots. The tightly designed dance at this Los Angeles terminal offers a window on how global trade will move in the near future: using highly automated systems and machinery, with minimal human intervention, to handle the flood of goods that new free-trade agreements will push to the docks.

“Automation, which boosts terminal productivity and reliability while cutting labor costs, is critical to the ability of ports to cope with the surging trade volumes and the huge megaships that are beginning to arrive in the U.S.,” writes The Wall Street Journal (March 28, 2016). Technology can reduce the amount of time ships spend in port and improve productivity by as much as 30%. At a cost of over $1 billion to complete and the capacity to handle 3.3 million 20-foot container units—nearly half of the L.A. port’s volume last year— automation is a big bet on the future.

The U.S. has been slow to adopt the technology because of years of resistance by longshore labor unions. Some studies have shown robotic cargo handling can reduce the need for longshore labor by as much as 50%. In 2002, the issue came to a head as West Coast port employers locked out workers during bitter contract talks, shutting down the Pacific ports for 11 days.

Ports elsewhere have seen the investment pay off. An automated terminal in Rotterdam uses about half the labor needed at its conventional terminal at the same port.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the advantages and risks of port automation?
Why the need to automate now?

OM in the News: China’s Fading Factories

Workers walk past notices listing factory space for rent in Dongguan, a once thriving manufacturing hub.

For decades, the Dongguan region of China’s Pearl River Province drove that country’s global ascent in exports, producing furniture, garments, shoes and other goods. But the world’s workshop has been stumbling as cheaper production bases in Asia have gained ground, reports The New York Times (Jan. 20, 2016). Last year, Chinese exports fell for the first time since the recent financial crisis, a situation that is likely to be further eroded by the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The U.S.-led trade agreement deepens American ties with Asian countries like Vietnam and Malaysia, but it excludes China.

Chinese leaders have started to encourage the phasing out of low-end exports in favor of promoting the service sector and high-tech manufacturing. Some traditional manufacturers have responded to the downturn by relocating farther inland or overseas, where costs are generally lower. The shift away from low-end, labor-intensive manufacturing “is an unavoidable part of the structural change that the economy is undergoing,” says a China expert at Oxford.

At their peak, factories in Dongguen accounted for 1 in every 4 pairs of athletic shoes sold globally. Now, while costs are rising, demand from overseas customers has also been declining. So some companies are making a future bet by expanding to a less-developed province, Guizhou, where labor costs are 40% less than those in Dongguan. Other large Dongguan shoe companies have shifted production to Bangladesh.

Other sectors have similarly been struggling, including some electronics manufacturers. In October, Fu Chang Electronic Technology, a supplier to the telecommunications equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, shut its doors unexpectedly. The closing prompted a protest by thousands of workers.

Classroom discussion questions:

How is China following American manufacturing trends?
Is automation a major factor in Chinese production?

OM in the News: Levi Strauss Considers Leaving China

Thirty years ago, Levi Strauss & Co. began producing its iconic jeans in China, eager to tap a seemingly endless stream of workers willing to sew for a few dimes an hour. Now that stream is starting to dry up. “Over the coming decades, a labor shortage will force Levi and scores of other Western brands to remake their China operations or pack up and leave,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Nov.24, 2015). The changes will mark a new chapter in the history of globalization, where automation is king, nearness to market is crucial and the lives of workers and consumers around the world are once again scrambled. “Labor is getting more expensive and technology is getting cheaper,” says one of Levi’s major suppliers in China.

Fearing that it will see an exodus of manufacturers, China last year called for “an industrial robot revolution,” and the country has become the world’s largest market for automation. It is an open question whether automation can hold down costs as effectively as Chinese peasant labor did. But consumers should look forward to more choice, faster delivery and, perhaps, less harm to the environment. Some technologists even think that inventions such as 3-D printing will have a big impact by 2050. In such a world, printers could spew out clothing, food, electronics and other goods ordered online from a nearly limitless selection, with far fewer workers involved in production. The end of very cheap labor in China is giving a push to these advances in technology, which will make China less central to global manufacturing.

China’s rise to the world’s No. 2 economy relied on a huge increase in the country’s working-age population, which expanded by 380 million people between 1980 and 2015. In one of history’s greatest migrations, hundreds of millions of rural Chinese headed for cities for manufacturing jobs that were a step up from peasant labor, even though the work paid poorly by global standards.

Classroom discussion questions:

Will more and more companies be leaving China to chase cheaper labor?
Why is automation so important to China? To the U.S.?

OM in the News: Poor Countries and Manufacturing Jobs

Cows on the streets of Ahmedabad, India. India has vowed to build better roads and clear red tape to pull it into the leagues of Asia's industrial powerhouses. — Cows on the streets of Ahmedabad. India has vowed to build better roads and clear red tape to pull it into the leagues of Asia’s industrial powerhouses.

The U.S. and Europe—and East Asia more recently—first got rich because of their factories. Over time, as incomes rose and their economies became more sophisticated, they shifted into modern services like health care and finance. But today, parts of South Asia, Africa and Latin America are failing to create thriving manufacturing sectors even though their wages remain low. Manufacturing employment and output are peaking and declining at vastly lower levels of income and development than they did in the West. When manufacturing peaked as a source of jobs in the U.S. in 1953, it employed 26% of American workers, and overall per capita income was around $17,700 in today’s dollars. By 2010, manufacturing accounted for around 9% of U.S. jobs.

Factory automation and robotics are reducing the need for unskilled workers from the countryside to staff assembly lines. Industrial latecomers now have to compete against China, whose massive, integrated manufacturing machine has made it the world’s factory floor and created a huge barrier to entry. Lower trade barriers and better communication have made it easier for supply chains to be spread over farther-flung locales, bringing more countries into direct competition for factory investment. “The factory-led model of advancement—which, for more than a century, has offered the quickest route out of poverty—is simply no longer available to today’s poorest nations,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 25, 2015). India must joust more often with other cut-rate producers like Bangladesh or Vietnam for slices of the manufacturing process—a component or an assembly here, some product development there—rather than for “start-to-finish industry.”

More factories also might not translate into as many jobs, at least not for humans. Sales of industrial robots shot up by 29% last year to a record of nearly 230,000 units and are expected to keep climbing, to 400,000 units shipped by 2020, especially in Asia.

Classroom discussion questions:

U.S. ever recoup the manufacturing jobs it lost since 1950? Why?
Why is it harder for India to catch up with China?

OM in the News: The Robots Chasing Amazon

The Fetch warehouse robot can carry as much as 150 pounds at a time

In Fetch Robotic’s mock warehouse, stocked with granola bars, breakfast cereal, sponges, and other household goods, a worker plucks items from shelves and places them in a plastic bin. The bin is set atop a small wheeled robot that follows the employee’s every step like a puppy. When the container is full, the robot darts off with it to a packing area; a second robot with an empty bin then picks up where the first left off, allowing the worker to keep gathering items without pausing or having to push around a heavy cart. Fetch Robotics, reports BusinessWeek (Oct.26-Nov. 1, 2015), is one of a handful of startups working on warehouse robots aimed specifically at e-commerce companies.

As with most things in the world of online retail, Fetch exists because of something Amazon.com did. In 2012, Amazon paid $775 million for warehouse robot maker Kiva Systems; shortly after, it stopped Kiva from selling its machines to anyone else. “When Amazon drops nearly $1 billion on something just to keep it out of the hands of competitors, it sends a really strong message to the market,” says an industry analyst. With a goal of plugging that hole, Fetch says its robots can keep up with a briskly walking person for 8 hours on a fully charged battery. It has just started selling its robots, for $25,000 apiece, and is considering renting them for $4 an hour–meaning the full purchase price should pay for itself in 6 months.

The cost of greater automation, of course, is fewer jobs. But the rise of online shopping created one of the relative bright spots in the U.S. job market: The warehousing industry employed 778,000 people in September, up 22% from 5 years earlier. For now, the Fetch robots are meant to be mechanical pack mules, supplementing humans who have the vision and dexterity to quickly recognize and retrieve the desired products. Fetch, however, is developing a robot with cameras and clawed arms that it says will eventually be able to grab items from the shelves, too.

Classroom discussion questions:

How does the Fetch robot differ from Amazon’s Kiva?
Why is robotics so important in warehouse management?

OM in the News: A Restaurant Without Servers, Registers or Visible Cooks

Eatsa is aiming for a more efficient and less expensive experience like the automats found in Japan and Europe (and like the old Horn & Hardart automats in NYC, which closed in 1991).

There’s a new quinoa restaurant in San Francisco, one where customers order, pay and receive their food and never interact with a person, writes The New York Times (Sept. 9, 2015). The restaurant, Eatsa, the first outlet in a company with national ambitions, is almost fully automated. There are no waiters or even an order taker behind a counter. There is no counter. There are unseen people helping to prepare the food, but there are plans to fully automate that process, too, if it can be done less expensively than employing people. Whether a restaurant that employs few people is good for the economy is another question. Restaurants have traditionally been a place where low-skilled workers can find employment.

Automation is transforming every industry. Business owners look to substitute machines for human labor. It happened to blue-collar workers in factories and white-collar workers in banks and even law firms. With self-driving vehicles, it may happen in the taxi and trucking industries. Robots are expected to transform health care. Automation is already part of many restaurants. Reservations are made online, orders arrive at the kitchen electronically, and bills are paid with a swipe on an iPad. Chains like Chili’s use tablet computers for ordering and paying, to speed the process and cut personnel costs.

Eatsa is one more example of how rapidly machines have moved beyond routine jobs like clerical and manufacturing work to knowledge jobs and service jobs — like waiting tables. “The objective is over time we want to automate more and more to increase speed and reduce cost, so we create a food product that’s much cheaper and also happens to be healthy,” said the founder. “By not hiring people to work in the front of the restaurant,” he said, “they save money on payroll and real estate.”

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Eatsa‘s approach?
What technologies do other restaurants use already?